DESCRIPTION
Functional wood is needed in this channel segment to increase channel complexity and help aggrade the bed to reconnect floodplain areas that have been disconnected by channel incision. Failure of the previously installed log weirs highlights the need to support natural floodplain processes such as channel migration and the importance of treating the entire stream corridor rather than fixing the stream within its artificially confined (induced by incision) channel. Removal of the fill materials along the abandoned road alignment will restore connectivity to potential off channel habitat.
Channel incision has resulted in an entrenched channel and disconnected adjacent floodplain areas. Log weirs were previously constructed to maintain grade control in the incised channel segment downstream of the Navy RR culverts. The log weirs were damaged in the December 2007 flood and created a fish passage barrier for several years until 2013 when the channel eroded around the end of the logs. There is fill (abandoned road) isolating about half of the potential floodplain area beginning 500 ft downstream of the railroad grade.
